Assassin’s Creed Valhalla

[Pelekophoros]

I'm 20 hours into this and loving it. I've cleared Grantebridgescire and am now lolling about in Ledecestrescire, having just been on an exotic trip to Tamworth.

 

Having played a lot of open world games in the past couple of years, this one is making me chuckle because it's lovely but doesn't feel exotic. Tamworth! They've not even got a snowdome there yet.

 

I'm massively overpowered now for the area I am in, but that's cool. This is just chill gaming for me. "Sneak into here and steal a thing" it says. No thanks, I'm just going to murderise everyone and then clear the town of valuables. Cheers!

[SeanR]

6 hours ago, Pelekophoros said:

"Sneak into here and steal a thing" it says. No thanks, I'm just going to murderise everyone and then clear the town of valuables. Cheers!

I’m 240 hours in, and that never gets boring.

[sofasurfer]

I don' know how I feel about this

 

https://www.pushsquare.com/news/2021/12/assassins-creed-valhalla-dawn-of-ragnarok-expansion-launches-march-2022

 

It would be nice if it was part of the Season Pass but it seems it isn't, typical Ubisoft I suppose.

 

Also it seems they want a piece of the whole God Of War hype in 2022 as well. 

[JoeK]

Well, I'm kind of a fan of the AC games - Odyssey was absolutely fantastic, as was Origins before. 

 

Valhalla is starting in the right direction - I like Eivor. Well, I like the voice actor(s - both are great).

 

But, it does feel there's a lot more jank in the game compared to the previous two. Admittedly, I didn't get around to playing either of the last two until a fair bit later after release, but there's lots of weird quirks going on all over the place. 

 

However, it's a lovely looking game for the most part, and the soundtrack's great too.

 

A good Xmas game for me.

[Pelekophoros]

I'm forty hours in and realised that after 100% clearing 4 territories I was playing it wrong. I was going around and doing the collectathon stuff before doing the quest missions, which meant that when I went back to the quests I revisited a bunch of places I'd already been.

 

Switching that around for the fifth territory.

 

Absolutely loving it though. Level 144 currently, and dropped on the currently discounted season pass too. 

 

However, even after switching on enemies levelling alongside me I am now an invincible Viking of godly powers. May have to crank it up again.

[SeanR]

Nothing worse than clearing a newly-discovered castle single-handedly, being met with a locked door, and then having to do it all over again, as a mission, to find the door is now unlocked.

 

265hours and a bunch of bum-endings…

[SeanR]

Ooh ooh! I still have Ireland and Paris to do!

[Pelekophoros]

21 minutes ago, SeanR said:

Nothing worse than clearing a newly-discovered castle single-handedly, being met with a locked door, and then having to do it all over again, as a mission, to find the door is now unlocked.

 

265hours and a bunch of bum-endings…

 

Yep, the big climax to East Anglia was somewhat ruined by the fact I'd murdered everyone in that castle an hour earlier. 

[Garwoofoo]

For me Valhalla only really got fun once I'd unlocked a bunch of abilities in the skill tree that opened up the option to play stealthily and also gave me some choices about how to fight battles.

 

Up to that point the only real choice you have in battle is to charge in mashing the attack button, which might be true to the Viking theme but isn't remotely as fun as the game gets later on when you can sneak around setting traps and generally making a real nuisance of yourself.

 

I really hate the skill tree in this. Those abilities (and others) make the game categorically better, but it forces you to play for hours before you start to get access to them. Even after that you are forced to go into the skill tree constantly to spend your drip-fed skill points which is just a momentum-sapping nuisance. They could have streamlined it by removing it completely, just giving you lots of options from the start and letting you decide how to play the game.

 

 

[Hawklord]

Started this yesterday. Got to the end of the first area. Is there anything I should have done before I set sail? I presume I can return to this area in the future and don't need to rinse it?

[Pelekophoros]

1 hour ago, Hawklord said:

Started this yesterday. Got to the end of the first area. Is there anything I should have done before I set sail? I presume I can return to this area in the future and don't need to rinse it?

 

Nah, you can give back at any point from the world map. 

[jonamok]

Right at the start of this (about 8hrs in), arrived in England, upgraded Ravensthorpe with the basics, raided a few monasteries, and about to go and form my first alliance. Now, I know it’s incredibly early days, but fuck me, this is great. Love the combat, the world is fantastic, and I’ve turned off most of the UI and map clutter, making it much less ‘Ubi’.

 

Thoroughly impressed and engrossed so far.

[SeanR]

Anyone bother with river raids?

[Pelekophoros]

11 hours ago, SeanR said:

Anyone bother with river raids?

 

I've done them a few times as a diversion, but still having so much if the main game in front of me I've not gotten too carried away. 

 

I'm mainly in need of raw supplies at the moment. I don't have enough to do the Christmas celebrations and my main town upgrades. I don't think the river raids grant them, so they're a bit hard to come by. 

[SeanR]

6 hours ago, Pelekophoros said:

 

I've done them a few times as a diversion, but still having so much if the main game in front of me I've not gotten too carried away. 

 

I'm mainly in need of raw supplies at the moment. I don't have enough to do the Christmas celebrations and my main town upgrades. I don't think the river raids grant them, so they're a bit hard to come by. 

see, it wants you to think river raids, but it’s actually abbey raids for town upgrades

[Fargo]

Although I enjoyed the last three games in the series I did agree with a lot of the points in this article

 

https://www.pcgamesn.com/assassins-creed-valhalla/microtransactions-vs-time-sinks

[Garwoofoo]

That’s just bollocks though. Valhalla is a huge and generous game that’s had two full expansions, a load of free new content and a bunch of seasonal events in its first year, and is just getting started on its second; if that’s what Games as a Service means then bring it on. Complaining it’s a “time sink” is bizarre, if you don’t like it then don’t play it. 

[SeanR]

There are no points in that article:

 

ooh, games are too short!

ooh, games are too long!

 

pish.

[jonamok]

20 hours in now (honeymoon period, I know) and still loving the Hel out of this. The story thus far is great, as are the performances. Loving Ubba and Ivarr especially. The world is stunning and a joy to explore. Single-handedly taking down a whole town’s worth of Christian scum is hugely diverting fun too.

[wullie]

Started this the other day and it's only the second AC game I've played after Odyssey but it feels much more different then I was expecting which is a nice surprise. Have to say I was quite happy to storm Tamworth in this after visiting their disappointing snowdome the day before

[Boothjan]

Going to start this after I'm done with Odyssey - is the choice of protagonist as easy as the previous game? Because essentially picking Alexios in Odyssey should result in your save file corrupting. 

[Isaac]

On 29/12/2021 at 23:30, Garwoofoo said:

That’s just bollocks though. Valhalla is a huge and generous game that’s had two full expansions, a load of free new content and a bunch of seasonal events in its first year, and is just getting started on its second; if that’s what Games as a Service means then bring it on. Complaining it’s a “time sink” is bizarre, if you don’t like it then don’t play it. 

 

Valhalla needed an editor. Hell, it needed a team of editors.

 

I burned out on it about 40 hours in, with probably another 40 hours left to go. The game had completely lost all challenge, I was straight up murdering entire encampments with all my upgrades.

 

Sure - I enjoyed those 40 hours, so in some respects I got my money's worth, but I think about half the content could easily have been cut to make for a tighter, better experience. I still hear that the ending is bonkers but I will never make it there.

 

The idea that they are adding tens of hours of DLC is just mind boggling to me.

 

Longer is not always better.

[dreamylittledream]

3 hours ago, Boothjan said:

Going to start this after I'm done with Odyssey - is the choice of protagonist as easy as the previous game? Because essentially picking Alexios in Odyssey should result in your save file corrupting. 

The canon choice is to let the Animus choose and it works quite well from a plot perspective 

[jonamok]

I keep forgetting there’s an overarching story of modern-day bollocks. I’m happily Eivoring around, see a weird glowing object, next thing I know the narrative immersion vanishes, I’m some modern scientist in Danelaw-era Mercia, clambering Mario-style over a load of blue graphical blocks. Or I wake up in a cabin with characters I know fuck all about, and satellites are falling out of the sky from a CME or something. It’s ridiculous really.

 

As it’s my first AC game I have no fucking clue what the overarching story is about, and there’s no on-ramp for newcomers.

 

I assume the in-game Order of Ancients vs Hidden Ones battle is reflected in the meta game? Is there a short video or resource that explains the ‘real world/animus’ story and plots of the other games without spoiling Valhalla?

[Garwoofoo]

4 hours ago, Isaac said:

 

Valhalla needed an editor. Hell, it needed a team of editors.

 

Longer is not always better.

 

Oh, I completely agree. They could have cut fully half the regions of England and it would have made for a better game. Many of them are not even very interesting (Glowecestershire I am looking at you) and half the time you don't even really know why you are doing them. The entire plot is contained in the first hour of the game, the last hour of the game and maybe three cutscenes in-between, and then the rest of it is a hundred hours of pointless Anglo-Saxons.

 

I completed it this week and I will say the actual ending was far better than I expected, it really sets good things up for the series going forward. It even shed some light on some of the things in the game that I'd written off as pointless nonsense (e.g. Asgard). And I will be going back to do the other stuff I've missed (I think the Order of the Ancients and the Animus Anomalies are both going to be important). But there's so much nonsense on the way to that point.

 

(As an aside, I did the first DLC, the Ireland one, and it was actually really good. A decent area, a self-contained plot, excellent characters and some fun new mechanics. I enjoyed that more than any of the actual regions in the main game, and I wish they'd concentrated on fewer areas with that kind of quality rather than the content overload they went with).

[Pelekophoros]

80 hours in, level 340ish, the last time I died was in Jotunheim to a giant bear...or maybe that time I fell too far? I don't know. It doesn't happen often. I've been mainly clearing areas as I go, though have bene powering through quests before collecting everything since half way. I don't know how many territories I have left yet - it both feels like I'm near the end and oh so far away.

 

Still enjoying it though. Gonna switch around my weapons again tonight (did dual axes to start, switched to hammer and shield, think I'll go with spears or something next).

 

 

[jonamok]

So, 30 hours in, and Eivor has a drink of something nasty, and suddenly wakes up in

Spoiler

Asgard, as someone called Havi, a name I’ve never heard before but seems to be an Odin-like role. On a throne, atop this beautiful palace, looking down at the bloody Bifrost! And then I’m running along it, with Thor, twatting giants!

Completely blew my mind. Had no idea that was coming in this game. It looks bloody amazing. Brilliant stuff.

[Captain Kelsten]

2 hours ago, jonamok said:

So, 30 hours in, and Eivor has a drink of something nasty, and suddenly wakes up in

  Hide contents

Asgard, as someone called Havi, a name I’ve never heard before but seems to be an Odin-like role. On a throne, atop this beautiful palace, looking down at the bloody Bifrost! And then I’m running along it, with Thor, twatting giants!

Completely blew my mind. Had no idea that was coming in this game. It looks bloody amazing. Brilliant stuff.

 

Spoiler

Havi is another name for Odin. 

 

[jonamok]

Cool. Guessed as much. Just fought a big-ass, burrowing Wolf. Crazy game. 🤣

[pinholestar]

There’s a hell of a lot more to that aspect of the game than first meets the eye, narratively speaking. I think it flew over a lot of people’s heads (it certainly did mine until I pieced it all together at the end) but it’s really fucking cool what they did there and was a real “Woah…” epiphany moment when the penny finally dropped.